News and Notes
Winner of the 2009 Best New New Mexico Play by the Vortex Theatre: Furman-Miller’s Passenger on the Ship of Fools Takes the Stage
"The horrible thing is that it was all so damned unnecessary but it’s done and can't be undone," wrote Katherine Anne Porter to her publisher Seymour Lawrence in mid-August 1961 after she completed her only novel, Ship of Fools. Porter's statement captures her conflicted sentiments regarding her novel, which cost her more than two decades of literary labor. After establishing herself as a master of the short story, Porter felt compelled by publishers to produce a novel. As Darlene Harbour Unrue puts it in her biography, Porter’s final "push" came at the Yankee Clipper Inn at Pigeon Cove, on Cape Ann, in Rockport, Massachusetts (249).
Not surprisingly, Laura Furman and Lynn C. Miller's Passenger on the Ship of Fools, a play based on the life and work of Katherine Anne Porter, is set at the Yankee Clipper Inn, Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1961. Weaving fact with fiction, the Furman-Miller play depicts a day in the life of Porter, with flashbacks to momentous events to document Porter's desperate struggle to complete Ship of Fools. The play includes passages from Porter's published prose, as well as Porter's correspondences, the interview with Barbara Thompson Davis, the Joan Givner biography, and Glenway Wescott's Continual Lessons. Although the play makes liberal use of Porter's own words, the playwrights note that everything else is a product of their creativity.
A portion of the play was first performed on May 2, 2001, at the Water Club in New York City to benefit Yaddo—a place where Porter felt at home since she spent significant time in residence and served as a member of the Corporation of Yaddo. The renowned actress, Irene Worth, starred in this excerpt and was to perform the full version in April 2002. Unfortunately, Worth's untimely death a month before the April 2002-scheduled performance left the role open for Louisiana State University Professor Emerita Mary Frances HopKins. HopKins, a pioneer scholar in the field of Performance Studies, has directed and performed the work of many modern and contemporary writers. With HopKins as Porter, the Furman-Miller KAP play debuted on April 16, 2002, in the Brockett Theatre in the Winship Building on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
In addition to the April 2002 performance, there were two other productions of Passenger on the Ship of Fools that year. On June 27, 2002, a portion of the play took center stage at the Yaddo Summer Benefit in the Music Room in Saratoga Springs, New York. Directed by David Esbjornson and performed by Kathleen Chalfant, the May 2003 KAP Society Newsletter reported that "Chalfant's moving performance was informed by brilliant insight into the deeply psychological sources of Porter's creative energy and work." On October 4, 2002, the play was performed in the HopKins Black Box Theatre at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For the second time, Frances HopKins played the role of Porter. After finding the April 2002 performance so rewarding, HopKins had asked and been granted permission to further develop the play, or as she called it a "performance in progress."
Passenger on the Ship of Fools enjoyed another run in the summer of 2006. From June 25 through July 9, 2006, the play was performed at the Schoolhouse Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Directed by Jeff Spencer and performed by Equity actress Judith Partelow, the play was part of the summer season of CTEK Arts. These "Evenings With" included plays about various artists, such as playwright Lillian Hellman, painter Georgia O'Keeffe, autobiographer and arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan, theatrical director Margo Jones, and the eclectic Gertrude Stein.
Since 2006, Furman and Miller have revised the play for three actors, who play out different aspects of Porter's history and consciousness. The year 2009 has seen more activity for the Furman-Miller KAP play. On February 1, 2009, a staged reading, directed by Lee Kits and with Nan Jeris, Bridget Kelly, and Ninette Mourdant, was given at the Vortex Theatre located on Central Avenue SE in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A talkback with the playwright, director, and actors followed the reading, which was free and open to the public.
From July 24 until August 9, 2009, the play will be performed, under the direction of Victoria Liberatori, again at the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque. As the winner of the 2009 best new New Mexico Play by the Vortex Theatre, Passenger on the Ship of Fools is billed with the following description:
An insider's look into the fascinating, controversial and largely unknown life of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Katherine Anne Porter. If you know her only from the famous film based on her novel, Ship of Fools, this play—selected as best new New Mexican Play of 2009 by the Vortex Theatre—will bring you a world of surprise, laughter, tears and tremendous insight into the story of this major 20th century writer.
Performed on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 pm and Sundays at 6 pm, the play will be followed by a talkback on Sunday, August 2, 2009.
Information regarding the forthcoming performances can be found on the Vortex Theatre’s webpage. There one can also find information about other upcoming performances and about the theatre itself. Opening its doors in 1976, the Vortex Theatre is one of Albuquerque’s premier theatres. It is a small, non-profit community theatre located across from the University of New Mexico. As a thriving member of the Albuquerque Theatre Guild, the Vortex Theatre is a venue for a range of performances from classic to contemporary, and from "local and national premieres to new interpretations of classic works."
Passenger on the Ship of Fools was the first collaborative work of Laura Furman and Lynn Miller. Best known for her role as series editor for the annual PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Furman is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer, and essayist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, Mirabella, Yale Review, Southwest Review, Ploughshares, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and House & Garden. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship. As a published author of five works of fiction, including Drinking with the Cook, and a memoir titled Ordinary Paradise, Furman founded American Short Fiction, a quarterly committed to discovering and publishing cutting-edge fiction. Although a New York City native, Furman has lived in Texas since 1978 and is currently a Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. In a 2001 article titled "Safety in Words: The Dangerous, Graceful Life of Laura Furman," Furman was said to be "someone who really hears others' lives,"
Lynn C. Miller is a successful writer, playwright, director, and performer. In 2007, Miller, formerly professor of Women's Studies and Theatre at the University of Texas at Austin, founded WriteSpace International in Albuquerque, New Mexico. WriteSpace International: Writing for Change offers individual coaching sessions as well as group sessions to aid creativity and initiate the writing process of short or book-length manuscripts. In addition to teaching the writing process, Miller has authored two novels, The Fool’s Journey (2002) and Death of a Department Chair (2006) in addition to co-editing Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women’s Autobiography (2003). Miller grew up in the northern plains in eastern North Dakota but has traveled from coast to coast teaching and conducting writing/performance workshops. The Furman-Miller play illustrates, despite what Porter wrote to Lawrence in August 1961, how necessary the novel really was and how it gave birth to and inspired new art forms.
In Memoriam: Beverly Lewoc
Beverly Shelton Lewoc, retired professional woman and Katherine Anne Porter Room docent died on February 10, 2009. Born in Dumas, Louisiana, she was a graduate of the University of Maryland and worked for the United States government at the Goddard Space Center for over forty years. She served as a Porter Room docent from September 1995 to December 2007. From 1995 until her death, she was a member of the Katherine Anne Porter Society. Survivors include a brother and four sisters.
One-Woman Performance at Book Fair in New York City
Actress Pennylyn White performed her "Katherine Anne Porter: A Driving Desire" on December 7, 2008, at 20 West 44th Street, New York, NY. The performance was one of the events of the 21st Annual Small Press Book Fair. Presented by the New York Center for Independent Publishing and the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, the fair celebrated publishing’s independent sprit with public events in addition to the sale of books by more than 100 independent publishers. White’s original piece was described in the press release for December performance:
"'I never started out with anything in this world but a kind of passion, a driving desire.' Her flawless pen and harsh criticism of not only her times, but of human history, made Katherine Anne Porter a major voice in twentieth century American literature. When Porter left her home state of Texas for New York City, she brought with her the hard edge of a Western pioneer. It was this edge more than anything that made her name as a writer. In tribute to Porter’s life, work and legacy, actress Pennylyn White brings to life the woman behind the myth in a probing performance using extracts of Porter’s body of work, including her personal letters."
New York Public Library Yaddo Exhibit
The exhibition entitled "Yaddo: Making American Culture" opened at Gottesman Hall in the New York Public Library's Fifth Avenue Humanities and Social Sciences Library on October 24, 2008. The exhibition, which remained on display until February 15, 2009, explored the multiple ways that Yaddo as an institution and the artists it supported were ultimately anything but sequestered from the rapid social, political, and economic changes that marked the twentieth century. The displayed materials were drawn from records of the Corporation of Yaddo that were acquired by the NYPL in 1990 through a gift of the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund, from collections throughout the NYPL, as well as from Yaddo's own holdings. Mounted in a nearly 6,400 square foot space, the exhibition displayed letters, papers, photographs, rare books, art works (paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture), furniture, ephemera, and sound and multimedia components, to explore the multiple ways that Yaddo as an institution, and the artists it supported, were never quite able to retreat from the wider world and found themselves responding to the political and economic conditions of the twentieth century. Both an exhibition companion volume, with essays by the exhibition curator, scholars, and artists, and a Web site were produced for the exhibition. More information is available at the Web sites of the New York Public Library and Yaddo.
KAP and Yaddo Exhibit at the University of Maryland Libraries
Anna Yallouris, a graduate student in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, curated the related exhibit, "Katherine Anne Porter and Yaddo: 'peace, repose, and working atmosphere,'" mounted in the Katherine Anne Porter Room in Hornbake Library. The display focused on Porter's long association with Yaddo and features correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and other items from her papers. The exhibition opened to coincide with the October opening in New York City and will remain on view through July 2009. On April 25, 2009, during the University of Maryland's all-campus open house, Anna Yallouris and Curator of Literary Manuscripts Beth Alvarez were available in the Porter Room from 1:30-3:30 pm, to receive visitors and discuss the exhibit. A press release, article, and Web page contain additional information and images.
Library of America Porter Volume Published
In October 2008, the Library of America published Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories and Other Writings, edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. The book gathers together Porter's published stories, most of her essays and book reviews that were collected during Porter's lifetime, along with many that were not, and six pieces reprinted for the first time since their original publication. In an illuminating interview with Darlene Unrue published online in the Library of America e-Newsletter, Unrue writes that she included the six previously unpublished pieces because they are "valuable essays and sketches in which Porter reminisces about her past life and comments on her development as a writer." Unrue notes that "Ship of Fools, the three published sections of her unfinished biography of Cotton Mather, and a selection of her brilliant letters belong to a second volume." One can access Unrue's interview with the Library of America at the publisher's Web site.
KAP Play at Philly Fringe Festival
Exclamation Theater, Inc., presented the world premiere of Callie, Katherine, Miranda, and Others: ‘with tambourines and dancing’: Katherine Anne Porter Reminisces about her Life and Work at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, September 4-7, 2008. The one-hour, one-woman play by Ellen Hendrix consists of an extended monologue by Katherine Anne Porter. The piece depicts Porter returning from the dead and visiting her Grandmother Porter’s Kyle, Texas, home as the property is being transformed into a museum and writers’ center. Discovering some of her own possessions collected there, she relives moments of her life, taking the audience into her confidence about her writing, men, politics, family and friendships, and things she had obscured during her life and career.
Directed by Exclamation Theater’s Executive Producer, Dr. Patricia Robinson-Linder, the production starred Dr. Carol Raviola. A retired vascular surgeon, Raviola is a member of the Exclamation Theater company and a seasoned Philadelphia actress who has also appeared in numerous independent and festival films. Co-founder of Exclamation Theater, Robinson-Linder is a professional director, who, after retiring from university teaching, has begun a second career teaching in the magnet high schools of the School District of Philadelphia. The playwright, Dr. Ellen Hendrix of Baltimore, is employed as an editor for a publishing house. Her earlier work, Upquark and Entropy, was also produced by Exclamation Theater.
Exclamation Theater, Inc., headquartered in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, is a twelve-year-old educational non-profit dedicated to training and educating the public for literature-in-performance. There are three companies subsumed within its structure: Dramatis Personae; Rose, Thistle, Daffodil, and Harp; and Summer’s Day. All are cultural, ethnic, gender, and age-diverse. Photographs and a program from the September 6, 2008 production are available.